According to Ibn Taymiyyah every child is born in a state of fitrah;
in a state of innate goodness, and it is the social environment which cause the
individual to deviate from this state. There is a natural correspondence between
human nature and Islâm; man is suited for Dîn al-Islâm and responds
spontaneously to its teachings. Dîn al-Islâm provides the ideal
conditions for sustaining and developing man’s innate qualities.[1]
Man’s nature has inherently within it more than simply knowledge of Allâh,
but a love of Him and the will to pracitise the religion (dîn) sincerely
as a true hanîf. This points to the element of the individual
will, a pro-active drive which purposefully seeks to realise Islamic beliefs and
practices. Ibn Taymiyyah responded to Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s notion of fitrah
and argued that it is not merely a dormant potential which should be awakened
from without, but rather the source of awakening itself, within the individual.
The hanîf is not the one who reacts to sources of guidance, but
one who is already guided and seeks to establish it consciously in practice.[2]
The central hadîth refers to a change which may be affected by
the social environment; Ibn Taymiyyah maintained that this change is one from a
given state, a positive state of Islâm, to Judaism, Christianity, Magianism,
etc. The social environment may be also guide the individual to îmân
and good conduct so that the motivation in him to do good may be expressed,
aided by external sources of guidance.[3]
Ibn Taymiyyah was of the view that the human soul possesses an innate receptive
capacity and a need for Islâmic guidance while Dîn al-Islâm is an
adequate stimulus for this capacity and a sufficient fulfillment of this need.

Moreover, if sources of external misguidance are absent, the fitrah
of the individual will be actualised involuntarily and good will prevail.[4]
In support of this view, Ibn Taymiyyah cited Abû Hurairah’s reference to the
central Qur’ânic âyah (30:30) after the latter’s quoting the
central hadîth.[5]
In other words, whenever Abû Hurairah, may Allâh be pleased with him, reported
the central hadîth, he used to recite after it the following
Qur’ânic âyah:

‘Set your face to the dîn in sincerity (hanîfan:
as a hanîf) which is Allâh’s fitrah (the
nature made by Allâh) upon which He created mankind (fatara’n-nâs).
There is no changing the creation of Allâh. That is the right dîn
but most people know not.’ (Qur’ân 30:30)

Abû Hurairah’s citation of this âyah after the hadîth
apparently means that the fitrah of the hadîth
refers to the fitrah of the Qur’ânic âyah, which is a
good fitrah because the right dîn is being described as
Allâh’s fitrah. The logic of this argument is that Abû
Hurairah, may Allâh be pleased with him, meant that fitrah is
associated with Islâm (al-Qurtubi, 1967). And according to Ibn Taymiyyah it is
the social circumstances, as represented by the parents, which causes the child
to be a Jew, a Christian or a Magian.

Since the Prophet, may Allâh bless him and grant him peace, did not mention
the parents changing the child from a state of fitrah to a state
of Islâm, we must suppose that the child’s state at birth is in harmony with
Islâm, in the widest sense of submission to Allâh (Ibn Taymiyyah, 1981).
Another implication of this view of fitrah is that, while good
constitutes the inner state of a person’s nature, evil is something that
happens after the person is born. That is to say, deviation after birth is due
to the corrupting influence of the social environment.

Ibn Qayyim (d. 751 A.H.), a disciple of Ibn Taymiyyah, held similar views on
the positive interpretation. He did not regard fitrah as mere
knowledge of right and wrong at birth but as an active, inborn love and
acknowledgement of Allâh which reaffirms His Lordship. He also explained that
Qur’ân 16:78 (‘And Allâh brought you forth from the wombs of your
mothers, knowing nothing…’) does not refer to innate knowledge of Allâh
or Islâm, but rather to knowledge of the particulars of religion in general
which is why the latter type of knowledge is absent at birth. Moreover, fitrah
is not merely the capacity or readiness to receive Islâm, in which such a
condition can be unfulfilled when parents choose Judaism or Christianity as the
child’s religion; Ibn Qayyim argued that fitrah is truly an
inborn predisposition to acknowledge Allâh, tawhîd and dîn
al-Islâm.[6]

Imâm an-Nawawî (d. 676 A.H. / 1277 C.E.), a Shâfi‘î faqîh who
wrote one of the principal commentaries on Sahîh Muslim, defined fitrah
as the unconfirmed state of îmân before the individual consciously
affirms his belief. We have already alluded to this positive view of fitrah
and the implications it has for children whose parents are polytheists.

Al-Qurtubî (d. 671 A.H.) supported the positive view of fitrah
by using the analogy of the physically unblemished animals in the central hadîth
to illustrate that, just as animals are born intact, so are humans born with the
flawless capacity to accept the truth; and, just as the animal may be injured or
scarred, so can fitrah be corrupted or altered by external sources
of misguidance.